No. 1, August, 1921] PALEOBOTANY 57 



380. GuppY, H. B. Evolution of water plants. [Rev. of: Arber, Agnes. Water plants : 

 a study of aquatic angiosperms. xvi + 436 p. University Press: Cambridge, 1920 (see 

 Bot. Absts. 9, Entry 374).] Nature 106:402-463, 1920. 



381. Fritel, p. H. Sur I'existence de I'Oeillette (Papaver somniferum var nigrum DC.) 

 en Provence, a I'epoque quaternaire. [On the existence of the poppy in the Pleistocene of Pro- 

 vence.] Bull. Soc. G(5ol. France 20: 207-208. Fig. 1. 1920.— A well preserved capsule of a 

 poppy from Aygalades, Bouches-du-Rhone, contained in a tuff of middle Pleistocene age 

 is described and figured. — E. W. Berry. 



382. Janet, Chas. Considerations sur I'etre vivant. Premiere partis. Resume prelimi- 

 naire de la constitution del'orthobionte. [Considerations on the living being. Part one, Prelimi- 

 nary resume of the organization of the orthobiont.] 80 p., 1 pi. Beauvais. 1920. — Study of 

 ontogenj' shows tliat all life springs from a single initial form — a phj^to-zoo-fiagellate, extra- 

 terrestrial in origin. Primordial assemblages of cells are called "merismes." Cells are of 

 two kinds, — plano-plastids (flagellated) and aplano-plastids (non-flagellated), one form lead- 

 ing to the other. The primitive cell is eventually imperishable. A merisme consisting of 

 a sporadic swarm with its derivative, the filament (of Ulothrix), and to transformations of 

 that filament, is given the name "plethea." The first cell is a proplastid; cells in process 

 of division are ontoplastids; products of division forming the merisme are teleplasts. Tele- 

 plasts are eventually imperishable (gonidia) and are apt to develop into new merismes. Plano- 

 plastids of the plethea may develop into a new merisme, the blastea, a spherical sheet formed 

 of a single layer of cells. The type of this process is furnished by the ontogeny of the blastea 

 of Volvox, stages of which are seen in the development of Algae, Bryophyta, Pteridophyta, 

 and Anthophyta. The blastea of the phyto-zoo-flagellate may be considered as being repre- 

 sented by the blasteas of the phyto-flagellates, the Chlorophyceae, and the zoo-flagellates. 

 Its proplastid is a planoplastid transformed by conditions into an aplanoplastid. There is 

 a pletheoblasteen alternation in the primitive living form: (1) Alternation of plethea and 

 blastea, resulting in piano-spores; (2) intercalary alternations of plethea and blastea, result- 

 ing in piano-spores; (3) male and female gametes; (4) parthenogenesis where there is failure 

 of conjugation. Development that has its birth with the zygote disappears with the death 

 of its merismes or terminates in a new zygote constituting a "holobiont." A line of merismes 

 leading directly from an initial zygote to a first new zygote is an "orthobiont," which may be 

 simple or double (with parthenogenetic alternation). The orthobiont is the essential ele- 

 ment of phyletic lines. Phyto-flagellates and zoo-flagellates considered without regard to 

 the divergences of the phyla differ merely in the mode of nutrition. The Volvocaceae are 

 purely blastean chlorophytes in which occurs the differentiation into vegetative and sexual 

 cells. In the unbranched Chlorophyceae, Ulothrix (a purely gonidial form) is directly 

 derived from a chlorophyllian phyto-flagellate. The Chlorophyceae are pletheoblastean in 

 nature. Departing from Ulothrix a differentiation of this state leads by way of the branched 

 Chlorophyceae to the proto-archegoniate ancestor of the primitive eu-archegoniate, whence 

 are directly derived the related groups, Bryophyta and Pteridophyta. The gymnosperms, 

 or astigmates, are derived from a heterosporous pteridophyte of the extinct group of Cycado- 

 filices. The angiosperms, or stigmates, are derived either from a pteridophyte of the Cyca- 

 dofilices group related to that from which the gymnosperms originated, or from a primitive 

 gymnosperm. — The primitive animal, the zoo-flagellate, or protozoan, is an orthobiont, 

 simple or exceptionally double (parthenogenesis). The somatic animal, or metazoan, is 

 derived from an ancestral zoo-flagellate with a simple orthobiont. The orthobiont of the 

 insect, which is taken as a type, comprises an initial blastea plus alternation of plethea and 

 blastea, plus blastea. The zygote develops into a blastea which in the very beginning differ- 

 entiates into (1) soma and (2) a gonidium of the orthobiontic value of a spore. The germ is 

 the product and direct descendant of the spore or primordial germinal cell which constitutes 

 the single and precocious gonidium of the initial blastea. — Winifred Goldring. 



